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Citi Field Could Become Venezuela North

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — In a far corner of the Mets’ spring training clubhouse, a group of players laughed and talked Spanish, and words like chamo and pana floated beyond the grasp of some of the other Spanish-speaking players nearby.

In Venezuela, chamo and pana are informal words of greeting and in Citi Field this summer they are sure to be heard on the field and on the mound. Five players from Venezuela are likely to account for more than a third of the Mets’ contingent of pitchers and catchers, and how they fare could go a long way in determining how the Mets do.

There is the ace, Johan Santana, from Tovar in the mountainous west of Venezuela. Catcher Henry Blanco is from the capital, Caracas, as is the Mets’ closer, Francisco Rodriguez. The potential eighth-inning setup man, Kelvim Escobar, comes from La Sabana on Venezuela’s northern coast and the possible fifth starter Fernando Nieve is from the port city Puerto Cabello.

“It feels like Venezuela here,” a laughing Santana said recently. “The five of us are always talking about things from our country that we understand. It’s a great feeling, a feeling like home.”

“Caraotas?” the Dominican shortstop Jose Reyes said when asked if he knew what the word meant. “What’s that?”

But perhaps he will know soon enough. If all five Venezuelans go north for opening day it will be the most players from that nation on the Mets’ roster at any time in the team’s 48-year history. That says something because, historically, the Mets have had a strong Venezuelan presence, dating to the original Met Elio Chacon in 1962.

Since Alex Carrasquel broke in with the Washington Senators in 1939, 246 Venezuelans have played in the major leagues, according to Baseball-Reference.com. Of that number, 28 have played for the Mets, and only two teams, Cleveland (30) and Seattle (29), have had more. Since Blanco and Escobar signed over the winter, the Mets’ number could grow to 30, assuming they make the roster.

The Mets are good at this kind of thing. They have had the most Japanese players of any major league team, with nine, and have two new Japanese players in camp, both of whom are pitchers with decent chances of making the roster. But the list of Venezuelan Mets is lengthier, and far more impressive.

“Wow, that’s a lot of guys,” the former Met Edgardo Alfonzo, the best of all the Venezuelan Mets until Santana, said when told of all his countrymen who have played for the team. “All we need now is the president.”

The president Alfonzo jokingly referred to is Hugo Chávez, who threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Alfonzo at Shea Stadium in 1999 while in a full baseball uniform.

Back then few could have predicted how polarizing Chávez would become, or how instrumental Alfonzo would be for the Mets. When he joined the team in 1995, Alfonzo was only the seventh Venezuelan to play in Flushing.

But he was so good, and so professional in his approach, that the Mets told their scouts to scour ball fields from Santa Teresa to Santa Rosalía looking for more of the same. They also expanded their relationship with Magallanes, the team Alfonzo played for in Venezuela.

Exactly half of the Venezuelan Mets, including Alfonzo and Santana, have at some point been represented by the same agents, Peter Greenberg and his brother Ed. They dominate Venezuela the way Santana dominates hitters.

“It’s funny,” Greenberg said. “I grew up a Mets fan and my friends from high school who are Yankee fans accuse me of stacking the Mets. But so many of the guys really want to play for the Mets. They come from a passionate baseball culture, and they love the intensity of playing in New York.”

Under Minaya’s stewardship, the Mets have sometimes been referred to as Los Mets because of their many Hispanic players, but 18 of the Venezuelan Mets played for the club before he was in charge. And unlike Alfonzo, most were not originally signed by the team.

For instance, Chacon, who died in Caracas in 1992, was selected by the Mets from the Cincinnati Reds in the 1961 expansion draft. He hit .236 in 118 games for that Mets team. Though Venezuela is famous for producing some fantastic defensive shortstops, including Luis Aparicio, Dave Concepcion and Omar Vizquel, apparently, Chacon wasn’t much of a fielder, either.

“I remember there were a lot of ground balls he didn’t get,” recalled Ken MacKenzie, who pitched for the 1962 Mets. “But I guess that’s coming from a pitcher who was worried about his earned run average.”

Still, Chacon is part of Mets lore. As a 1962 legend has it, center fielder Richie Asburn learned to yell “Yo la tengo,” meaning “I’ve got it,” after colliding with Chacon on a shallow fly ball. But then came a popup to left center. Ashburn naturally yelled “Yo la tengo,” only to be bowled over by left fielder Frank Thomas, who spoke no Spanish.

“That happened more than once,” MacKenzie sighed, “the three of them not catching a ball.”

After the Chacon experience, the Mets did not have another Venezuelan player for 25 years, until infielder Al Pedrique in 1987. But now, almost a quarter century after Pedrique, Venezuelan Mets will be doing a sizable chunk of the pitching and catching.

“It’s a good feeling,” Rodriguez said. “We have an understanding for each other, and we feel very comfortable together. It’s like the World Baseball Classic.”

A version of this article appears in print on February 25, 2010, on Page B19 of the New York edition with the headline: Citi Field Could Become Venezuela North. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe